Big story in Los Angeles today. Tenet Corp. is selling off nearly a third of its hospitals. I know a lot of these hospitals: I'm on staff at Midway and Brotman handles a lot of our open-heart surgeries. Queen of Angels, Daniel Freeman and Centinela all treat a lot of our patients (when you call 911, you get taken to the closest hospital in the area). Whittier Medical Center is less than a mile from my parents' house and has been part of the town for decades. Tenet's reason for doing this is that they can't afford the $1.6 billion earthquake retrofit mandated by the state.

I have no idea what's going to happen next with this, but it'll sure be interesting to watch. I sincerely hope that most of these hospitals don't wind up closing or we'll be in big trouble.